


Dinner at the Eagle and Child

by Annariel



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Sapphire and Steel
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 13:46:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9184180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annariel/pseuds/Annariel
Summary: Liz is eating alone in Oxford.  She is naturally suspicious, and not without reason, when Silver joins her - clearly time is about to break through.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lost_spook](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/gifts).



It was a miserable day and Liz Shaw was heartily fed up. The workshop in Oxford on _New Approaches to Quantum Physics_ had seemed like an excellent opportunity to catch up with some colleagues, get a feel for an upcoming area and take a break from the demands of students but the people she most wanted to see were all, it transpired, at an entirely separate conference on cosmology in Berlin that week, the Quantum Physics crowd seemed to delight in the impenetrability of both their clique and their jargon and, by some quirk of malicious fate her car had broken down on the approach to Oxford. The AA had helpfully towed it to what appeared to be an excellent garage but the fact remained that she was stuck in Oxford for the night with no one she particularly wanted to spend the evening with.

Liz was staying in guest rooms at St. Anne's which had hosted the conference. It was at the edge of the city centre but not so far that a short walk wouldn't take her to the bright lights of the big city, or at least, the dubious hustle and bustle of Cornmarket street. Since she had no particular desire to brave evening hall at St. Anne's, she had set off in search of food elsewhere only for the rain to start. Liz huffed her way up St. Giles in irritation and pulled her raincoat about her. She paused outside the _Eagle and Child_. She wasn't really in the mood for pub grub, and the Tolkien connection irritated her more than anything else. On the other hand it was raining and she had no idea what other restaurants might be on offer in the city centre. Oxford had never been her natural stamping ground.

"Perhaps you would care to join me for dinner?" a familiar and urbane voice said in her ear.

She scowled at Silver who was standing next to her in his normal suit and tie. The rain appeared to be ignoring him which merely added to her sense of irritation.

"What are you doing here?" she asked with more force than she had intended.

Silver looked mildly puzzled. "Asking you if you want dinner?"

"That would imply the concept of a free time, a social life, and idle chatter had any actual meaning for you."

Liz was actually genuinely curious on this point. She strongly suspected that Silver had no real existence beyond what he did. He was a process more than he was a personality, but she had no real evidence to back up that supposition.

"Well, I couldn't possibly comment, but I personally intend to go into that establishment and your company would be most welcome." Silver raised his eyebrows at her.

Liz gave in. She was wet and Silver was easily better company than any of the frustratingly patronising quantum physicists she had met earlier in the day. She waved towards the entrance.

"Oh, very well then. Let's have dinner."

Silver pronounced himself charmed by the interior of the pub, though he said it with the air of someone who thought that was the sort of thing people said about pub interiors, rather than someone who had an actual opinion.

Liz them found them a small table for two in a side room which wasn't totally packed with students and handed Silver a menu. He stared at it with interest and Liz found that she was on tenterhooks to discover if he was actually going to order and even eat some food. She glanced down at her own menu. It was pretty standard pub grub fare and she resolved quickly on scampi and put the menu down so she could study Silver more closely.

He sensed her gaze and looked up. "You order food from this list? how droll," he said.

"Now, you're teasing me."

He smiled. "Only a little. I am on the job, as you guessed."

"Should I order some food while you wait for the space-time continuum to start visibly falling apart?"

Silver smiled. "You might as well, I suppose. Pick something for me. Oh and make sure it comes with a knife and fork. They might be handy."

Liz shook her head and took the menus to the bar where she ordered a lasagna for Silver, two pints of 6X and, for good measure, got a packet of Salt and Vinegar crisps. Cutlery was stored in a tray at the end of the bar so after transporting the beer back to Silver, "fermented hops, how fascinating" she collected a good selection of knives, forks and spoons for him to play with. By the time she got back to the table however he had already transformed the salt and pepper into to little glass balls which he was rolling across the table with apparent delight. She dumped the cutlery on the table next to him and started on the crisps.

"So what sort of crisis are we looking for precisely?"

"Impossible to say really. Nothing too dangerous or they would have sent some operators with me. Located somewhere around here."

Liz leaned back and surveyed the pub. It was noisy and full of cigarette smoke. The walls were hung with an eclectic mixture of trinkets and photographs, not to mention the the plaque solemnly announcing that the Inklings had formerly met there.

"Something to do with J.R.R. Tolkien, perhaps, or C.S.Lewis? This pub is famous for them drinking here?" Liz asked.

"Who were they?"

"Writers, look them up in that encyclopedic brain of yours."

Silver paused momentarily. "Interesting, but no, I don't think it is anything to do with them. They're too obvious and they've been too well known for too long for it to trigger anything now."

"So it's something current? Something that has to happen today?"

"That's normally how it works, a confluence of things coming together."

Liz gazed around the pub again before something caught her eye, a familiar outline in one of the pictures on the wall. She hurriedly looked away and back at Silver.

"Might my presence in Oxford and my decision to have supper here be factors? I did once know a time traveller quite well after all."

Silver looked at her seriously. "It's not outside the realm of possibility."

Liz kept her eyes very firmly fixed on Silver, despite the temptation too look back at the photo. She felt as if something were gathering in her peripheral vision.

"I think the Doctor is in one of those photographs," she whispered.

Silver stilled but also resisted the temptation to look. "Interesting," he said, "can you give me a rough idea which."

"On the wall to my right, next to the door. I only got a glimpse."

Silver picked up a fork and spoon. He rolled them into a small ball of metal in his hands and then spread the result in a lattice around the remains of the salt and pepper containers until he held what looked like a glittering crystal suspended in a silver lattice.

"On the count of three, I would like you to look at the photo," Silver said.

Liz nodded.

"One. Two. Three."

Liz turned her head to look at the photograph. It was a sepia picture of the pub. The Doctor and Jo Grant were standing outside it. Jo Grant was wearing a long dress and a bustle. Next to them stood a man in 17th century garb. "Oh Doctor," Liz couldn't help saying. She had no idea why the Doctor and Jo plus a cavalier had been standing outside the _Eagle and Child_ some time in the late 19th century but she could recognise a time slip waiting to happen. If she'd come into the pub on her own she would have probably lingered over the photo with a smile of irritation and regret.

Something moved around the picture frame and the wall looked to be dissolving into a whirlpool. Liz clutched the back of her chair to ground her into reality. She felt Silver's hand on her shoulder, urging her to keep calm. The picture slowly fell backwards into the vortex and the thing began to expand. Then Silver lobbed his crystal ball into the gap. It fit almost perfectly sealing up the space. The vortex convulsed briefly and then snapped shut leaving just a blank stretch of wall behind it.

Liz relaxed and looked up at Silver who calmly returned to his seat opposite her.

"You're staying?" she asked as he took a cautious sip of his beer and then peered curiously into the glass.

"Well, I did offer you dinner. I think it would be churlish to go now, don't you?"

Liz laughed. "Only a little, but I'm grateful for the company."

At that point a harried looking waiter arrived with their food. Liz sat back and waited with amusement to see what Silver would make of lasagna.


End file.
